Filed Under:The Vision Festival

Akron/Family are currently holed up in Detroit, at Chris Koltay’s High Bias Recordings, working on the follow-up to 2009’s Set ‘Em Wild, Set ‘Em Free. The dudes checked in recently, sending us a link to some photos of the work in progress. Not only do we get photographic evidence, but Akron/Family posted three demos from the album, which you can stream via their bandcamp page. They are planting some fertile seeds, no doubt about it. Akron/Family have some newly announced dates in California, not to mention their upcoming show as Akron/Xtended/Family at the Vision Festival. All of their dates can be found here.

The greatest free-jazz festival in the world is going to be closed by a performance by Akron/Family on June 30th at Le Poisson Rouge in New York City!

The concert is billed as Akron/Xtended/Family and will be a collaborative performance with legendary free improv masters Hamid Drake and William Parker. Akron/Family recorded their record Meek Warrior with Hamid in Chicago in 2006 and played in support of the record with both William and Hamid.

The Vision Festival was started in 1996 by Patricia Parker, William Parker and Peter Kowald. Over the years it has hosted Milford Graves, Peter Brotzman, David Ware, Marshal Allen, Sam Rivers, Henry Grimes, and too many legendary free jazz artists to mention. The festival’s theme this year is “The Creative Option” and according to the Vision Festival producers “represents our commitment to bring cutting-edge music to new generations of listeners. Emerging artists and young bands are very important in maintaining a link between the pioneering legends and the innovators of the future.”

Akron/Family has always looked to many of these pioneering artists as inspirations and guides in the tone world, and are extremely proud to participate in helping to link younger musicians and fans to what they consider to be one of the most spirited and alive musical traditions in the world. Many of the musicians that play every year in the Vision Festival represent the living history of this music, and it is a true music of the future.

For the show Akron plans to revisit the material of Meek Warrior with William and Hamid as well as explore various improvisational spaces, tone color fields, Ayler theme calls, and elemental groove planes.